Here is the January Transition podcast, lovingly spliced together in order to offer a more in depth look at three of the stories from last month’s round-up. You’ll hear about how Transition Chesham’s local produce market was recently voted the greenest market in Britain, how Transition Town Whitehead are planning to plant 60,000 trees over the next few weeks, and how Transition Town Shrewsbury stepped in when the local council announced that it was stopping collecting cardboard for recycling, and did it themselves. I hope you enjoy it, and do let us know what you think.
It’s time for the second monthly Transition podcast, in which we return to November’s ‘Round-up of What’s Happening out in the World of Transition‘ and go into more depth on three of the stories it contained. Do let us know of any stories you think should feature in the next one. This month we look at:
Transition Norwich’s Farmshare CSA project, interviewing one of its founders standing in the very field where the CSA is based and hearing the joys and the realities of running such a scheme
Bath and West Community Energy‘s recent share launch which raised £721, 350! Find out their plans, the story so far and their very ambitious plans for energy generation in their area
Transition Llambed (Lampeter) who have just taken on a 20 year lease from their local council for their local hall, and have great plans to turn it into a Transition resource centre and farmers’ market.
At just over 15 minutes in length it’s rich with stories, inspiration and the voices of people out there doing Transition on the ground. You can play it here, or download it to listen to on the train, while you’re cooking, or out running. We do advise against listening to it whilst swimming though, on health and safety grounds. Do let us know what you think….
Last Saturday was the final day of the River Cottage/British Gas Energyshare vote, an innovative approach to raising awareness for, and supporting, community renewables. When voting closed, at 5pm, the winners were, in the large category, Hexham River Hydro, in the medium category, the Portobello and Leith community wind energy project, and in the small category, the North Devon Hospice and the Shrewsbury Hydro. Three of the four are Transition initiatives. There were also Transition groups who didn’t win, and also quite a few who didn’t make it through to the final vote (the many fantastic projects in the vote gave a sense of the huge hunger out there for community renewables). I talked to each of the 3 Transition winners, Portobello (here‘s a piece from their local paper), Shrewsbury and Tynedale about the Energyshare process, how they rustled up enough votes, how the last hours before the vote closed were spent, and how being winners makes a difference to their project. This short podcast captures their stories:
And here is the moment where Portobello and Hexham found out they had won:
Earlier this week I was in Norwich for the third birthday anniversary celebrations of Transition Norwich’s Unleashing. I had been meant to speak at that event, but had been unable to attend because I was ill, so it was great to get there finally and to be able to take part in their celebrations. Here’s a reminder of what that event was like:
This three-years-on celebration featured a new film about Transition Norwich (which I’ll post here when it is online), a talk by me followed by questions and answers, and then lots of chatting, eating cake, drinking tea and signing copies of The Transition Companion (unfortunately the batteries ran out in my recorder, so I have no audio of the actual event itself). At the end of my talk I dedicated it to Richard Douthwaite, who had passed away the previous day. Transition Norwich are doing some amazing things, and in order to capture some of the voices of some of those who have been involved and the story of Transition Norwich thus far, I interviewed 6 members (thanks Tierney for the loan of the batteries!) and on the train home created the following short podcast capturing where they have come from, where they are now, and where they think they are going.
My thanks to everyone there for their amazing hospitality. Here are a few photos from the visit….
How might our response to peak oil and climate change look more like a party than a protest march? This site explores the emerging transition model in its many manifestations
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